Mrs. Bovary de Porrentruy by Ariane von Graffenried
This brilliant piece from Switzerland was just announced as Best International Poetry Film at the prestigious ZEBRA Festival in Germany. It is a gritty, contemporary retelling in verse of Gustave Flaubert‘s historic novel, Madame Bovary.
The film concept and editing are by Yannick Mosimann. The soundtrack is by the musical duo Fitzgerald & Rimini – Ariane von Graffenried and Robert Aeberhard. Ariane’s powerful text and voice are at the wrenching heart of the film, the poem translated to English by Anne Posten. Other collaborators are in the YouTube notes.
The judges were Rosa Maria Hopp (editorial director MDR), Federico Italiano (poet) and Maria Mohr (filmmaker and film educator). Their comments:
Hemmed in by the mountains, this film not only features a protagonist trapped in the dreariness of daily life but also an image frozen in time—sometimes the 16 mm image is torn, sometimes doubled. And then, there’s that battered post rock over and over. It’s a perfect whirlwind of cinematic elements, interwoven with the three languages of the extraordinary poem that fuels them. And in between, there’s that “disturbing woman.” Hardly any phrase encapsulates this film as well as, “Mrs. Bovary from Porrentruy isn’t who she wants to be / Her needs are big, her life’s petit.” (source)
In posting here, I have given the abbreviated English translation of the title. Zebra Festival gives its original as Fitzerald & Rimini – D Frou Bovary de Porrentruy. That title format suggests the film may have first been conceived as a music video. Indeed it can also be heard just as a music track. And what a tremendous meeting this is of music video and poetry film.
There were 25 finalist films in the international competition. These were selected from around 1,200 entries from over 90 countries. Winning films in other categories at the 2023 ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival are here.
Hidden Life by Elina Petrova
Hidden Life is written and spoken by Ukrainian-born Elina Petrova, now in Houston, USA. The film is by Chap Edmonson, a native of that city. The film was in part inspired by Terrence Malick’s 2019 feature film A Hidden Life, a favorite for both poet and film-maker. The epigraph to that film is a line from George Eliot’s classic novel Middlemarch:
…for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
Petrova’s bio gives her home town as Donetsk, stating that “she became an American citizen in 2014, but remains a citizen of the world.” Also from her bio:
A frequent Pushcart Prize nominee and a finalist for the post of Houston Poet Laureate in 2015… She was appointed Austin International Poetry Fest’s Featured Poet in 2019 and has been featured in the Huffington Post’s “Five Poets You Need to Know About” as one of Houston’s important emerging poets.
Chap Edmonson’s bio from the film’s notes at YouTube:
Chap Edmonson is an award-winning filmmaker based in Houston. His films have been screened in Cannes, Paris, Alfred, Los Angeles, and Houston (Calm Remains, 2021, and You are Art, 2019). Chap’s work is rooted in a deep desire to connect with those who have come before him. Through the use of unconventional compositions and soundscapes, he creates films that tell dynamic stories of a rich history, the future, and points where they intersect.
He is interviewed about the film here.
The film was produced in association with Aurora Picture Show and Public Poetry Houston, which runs the yearly REELpoetry film festival.
Only by Rebecca Foust
A poetry film by interdisciplinary artist Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş based on the title poem of Rebecca Foust‘s seventh book, Only (Four Way Books, 2022). Kevin Martinez was the videographer. It was shot at Limantour Beach, California in April 2023.
The publisher’s description does make the book sound intriguing:
Urgent from the outset, Rebecca Foust’s ONLY insists that the only thing worth writing about is everything. Prompted to confront what she does not know, the speaker lists, “Null. All. What’s after death or before.” This book scales the cliff-face of adulthood, that paradoxical ascent in which the longer we live the less we know of life, in which we find that each of us is only ourselves and yet delicately interconnected with everyone, everything, else. These candid lyrics ponder our broken political systems, family (dys)function and parenting challenges, divergent and intersecting identities, the complexities of sexuality and gender, natural refuge and climate catastrophe, and in general what it means to be human in a world that sometimes feels as if it is approaching apocalypse. At the ledge of this abyss, however, Foust reminds us of the staggering beauty of life, the legacies of survival in the echoes of care that outlast us: “I came / to the canyon rim and saw // how best to carry you: I let the stone go.”
Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
Naomi Shihab Nye reads her own deep and beautiful poem Kindness in this excellent animated film by Ana Pérez López, a Spanish illustrator living in London. Sound and music are by Chris Heagle. The piece is from a series of poetry films produced by the On Being Project. Others from the series have previously been featured here at Moving Poems.
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